


Versailles at Night

by cobalamincosel



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Angst, Break Up Talk, Complicated Relationships, Drinking, M/M, Miscommunication, Non-Linear Narrative, Post-Break Up, Smoking, Unhappy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-17
Updated: 2020-07-17
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:27:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25333126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cobalamincosel/pseuds/cobalamincosel
Summary: It wasn’t meant to last longer than it did. That’s what Mark tells himself over and over. It’s what gets him through the day. It’s what gets him to close his eyes, even if the sun’s already creeping into through his curtains when he does.He should have known better. Johnny had never made any promises anyway, and Mark had always been too scared to ask, too worried about pushing his luck.
Relationships: Mark Lee/Suh Youngho | Johnny
Comments: 51
Kudos: 159





	Versailles at Night

**Author's Note:**

> I listened to Fall out Boy's 'Fourth of July' again recently and I could not let this go without writing it so I had no choice but to give in and spend the entire day writing this. 
> 
> The characters in this story are flawed people, and I hope very much as the writer that you don't feel the need to pick sides here. These are two people who have a lot of growing up to do, and unfortunately, sometimes relationships do run their course in this manner. All I ask is that this be read with an open heart and a lot of empathy for these two lonely boys.
> 
> This does not have a happy ending, so you've been warned.

It wasn’t meant to last longer than it did. That’s what Mark tells himself over and over. It’s what gets him through the day. It’s what gets him to close his eyes, even if the sun’s already creeping into through his curtains when he does.

He should have known better. Johnny had never made any promises anyway, and Mark had always been too scared to ask, too worried about pushing his luck.

It seems like it is one mistake after the other for Mark lately, just a string of missteps since he first fell into bed with Johnny in January.

He’s sitting on his best friend’s fire escape, phone in hand, miserable that he’s allowing himself to feel bad over a boy who deleted his Instagram posts of the two of them.

“Hey,” Renjun says, sticking his head out of the window. “You’re gonna catch a cold.”

“That’s not how colds work—“

“Mark, come inside,” Renjun says firmly, not taking no for an answer. He’s never been the type to take no for an answer.

Mark sniffles, locks his phone, wipes his nose on the sleeve of his green hoodie, and climbs back into the room, mindful to not bang his head on the way.

“What’re we gonna do about Ten’s party?” Renjun asks, filling his water heater and popping it onto its cradle, flicking the switch to make the water boil.

“We?” Mark asks, sighing as he stretches out on Renjun’s chair, this plain white Ikea thing that matches the tiny square kitchen table he’s got pressed against the wall. “ _We_ aren’t doing anything. _You’re_ gonna go, and I’m gonna stay home and just apologise to Ten for not being able to make it.”

The raised eyebrow Renjun turns to face Mark with would have made the blood freeze in his veins if he wasn’t so used to it already.

“You’re telling me that you’re going to skip your best friend’s graduation party just because your ex-whatever is gonna be there?” Renjun asks. “Mark, come on.”

Mark hunches over, plopping his chin on the table, his hands hanging by his feet. He exhales loudly, and as long as he can, before straightening up again.

“God, you’re right,” Mark says. “Ten would understand but I don’t wanna put him between a rock and a hard place.”

“Just to clarify, which one are you here? The rock?” Renjun asks just as the water heater clicks to signify that the water has boiled over.

“Har har,” Mark replies, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I don’t even know what Johnny and I are these days. We haven’t talked since we ‘broke up.’” He throws in air quotes and sarcastic tone for good measure.

It is perhaps a kindness that Renjun doesn’t bring up Johnny’s Instagram, or Mark’s abject absence from it. Not that he was very present there in the first place.

“It’s gonna be a house party,” Renjun says, just as he hands Mark a mug with a tea bag floating in it. “It’ll be fairly easy to avoid Johnny, if that helps any. Besides, I’m gonna be there and so will Hendery and Xiaojun. Those two will make sure you’re occupied and trashed enough to not have to deal with him.”

Mark stares at the teabag and the slow release of amber swirling in the water as it steeps. Renjun’s right. He can’t skip out on Ten’s just because Johnny will be there. He’ll be fine! He just has to not overthink it and not get drunk in Johnny’s presence and not text him or accost him in some dim hallway and demand—

What?

An apology? When there wasn’t a relationship to break up in the first place?

🌌🌌🌌

It’s almost like a fluke, how Mark ends up on his back with his legs on either side of Johnny Suh’s hips while he gets like, the dicking of the century.

It starts with a Tweet, because of course, it does. They’re mutuals, have been mutuals for a while, and it is when Johnny slides into Mark’s DMs to ask him about Hozier’s Take Me To Church and they reconnect after having become acquainted years ago by a friend of a friend of a friend that neither of them talks to anymore that they end up clicking.

Twitter is an awful platform for flirting, but Mark decides to throw caution to the wind because Johnny is ranting about how hard it is to match with anyone worthwhile on Tinder or Grindr, and says, “I just wish it was as easy with friends as like, ‘Hey, I’m down to bang, are you? If yes, let’s do it.’”

To which Mark bravely responds, “hey johnny, im down to bang, are u? If yes, let’s do it.’”

Mark stares at the three dots on the screen for a solid thirty seconds, bouncing his knee and trying to seen if it’s too late to throw in a “haha! Just kidding man”, before Johnny replies with “hey, if you’re down, im down. ;)”

They agree to have Mark come over the next evening, fitting since it’s Friday then, and it gives Mark enough time to kind of tame his pubic hair, and go to the salon to have his armpits and eyebrows waxed, and douche and stretch himself properly.

The ride to Johnny’s place is a quick 25-minute drive from Mark’s, and Mark tries to quell how giddy he looks and how nervous he feels when he catches a glimpse of himself in the reflection of the elevator doors.

Johnny answers the door immediately after Mark knocks once, and the tiny apartment smells like lemon and cream, and it turns out that he’s cooked for Mark, which Mark hadn’t expected.

Their first greeting is a bit awkward, given that they’ve never really hung out just the two of them, and the last time they had hung out together in the company of others had been back in their college days.

Mark doesn’t quite know if he should hug Johnny, or shake his hand, considering what he’s really here for, but Johnny brings him in for a one-armed hug and he’s all bright smiles and charming eyes and Mark is fucked from the moment he sets foot in this apartment.

Johnny is the perfect host, and he even offers Mark a spare toothbrush after Mark’s “Duuuude, you cook so well! This pasta was great.”

It’s a little stilted then, a little exhilarating after Mark brushes his teeth and uses Johnny’s bidet to wash up and soaps his hands thrice for good measure.

Johnny’s sitting on the edge of his bed, toggling through his Spotify with the aux cord attached to his phone, putting on some pretentious-ass music that Mark only knows about because he’d seen Johnny tweet links to songs and he’d listened to as many as he could before coming over.

“Hey,” Johnny says, honey warm voice wrapping around Mark as Mark emerges from the bathroom. “All good?”

Mark swallows. Johnny is so stupidly handsome in this yellow light, and he walks over to Johnny like a moth to a flame.

“All good,” Mark says, before licking his lips that taste like Johnny’s toothpaste.

“Good,” Johnny says. “C’mere.”

Mark steps between Johnny’s spread knees, and Johnny puts his hand on Mark’s hips before Mark bends down to bridge the admittedly small gap between him and Johnny, who kisses him while James Blake’s Retrograde plays softly in the background.

Johnny spends an eternity fingering Mark open while he’s on all fours facing Johnny’s thighs, bobbing his head as he does his very best to deep throat Johnny’s cock without gagging on it.

It’s a difficult feat for Mark whose gag reflex is sadly more sensitive than he’d remembered, but the choked out sob that emanates from behind him when he swallows Johnny’s down entirely is so worth the tears springing to his eyes from Mark’s effort.

Nothing prepares Mark for how full he feels later when Johnny finally slides into him, and Mark has to hold onto the wooden railing of Johnny’s bed to keep his head from bumping into it with how fucking feral they’re both being.

Mark can’t remember the last time he’d been with anyone whose hips could move like this, and his jaw truly does go slack when Johnny presses against Mark’s prostate like his _job_.

He comes untouched the first time, spilling across his belly and Johnny’s chest and it shocks him so much that he clenches tight around Johnny’s cock so hard, it makes Johnny choke out a breath and sort of keel over Mark, gasping out, “Did I just make you come?” with a voice full of wonder, and Mark’s so embarrassed, he wraps his legs around Johnny’s waist and just groans, “Move,” before Johnny resumes fucking into him.

Mark’s boneless and overstimulated by the time Johnny spills into the condom, ties it up, shoots it into the wastebasket next to his bed, and collapses next to Mark. The fairy lights around Johnny’s window make everything look muted in orange and shadows, and Mark watches the rise and fall of Johnny’s sweaty chest as he comes down from his afterglow.

Mark wonders if this is the part where he’s supposed to gather his clothes and leave, but then Johnny turns over and wedges his thigh between Mark’s and starts sucking on Mark’s neck like a vampire with blunt teeth and all plans of leaving are thrown out the window because it is obvious Johnny’s trying to work Mark up again for round two.

He spends the night, two more orgasms completely taking him out, and by the time they wake up, it’s almost lunchtime.

Johnny showers, walks out looking like a wet dream, offers him a towel, and says he can use the shower, so Mark does. The toothbrush Johnny had handed him the night before rests in the cup next to Johnny’s toothbrush. Mark doesn’t think much about it at the time.

(He fixates on it later. Much later.)

His entire body’s sore, his ass is aching and his leg has a sort of cramp from how much they’d tensed up as his last orgasm had built. There are hickeys all over his neck that won’t be hidden by his clothing, but it doesn’t matter, not when he’s going to sleep the rest of the day anyway.

Except that by the time he’s done with his shower and dressed in last night’s jeans and the plaid shirt he’d tied around his waist, Johnny’s already dressed to go out, and asks Mark if he wants to grab Japanese food with him, he knows a great place nearby, all that jazz.

So Mark goes, and they find themselves being seated in a booth in a restaurant that had had “Nihobashitei” blinking in bright neon colors, and they order a shitload of yakisoba and sushi and Mark tries uni for the first time in his life.

It’s a strange sensation in his mouth, but Johnny slurps it down obscenely, and Mark nearly pops a boner at the sound, remembering how orgasm number two had ended with Johnny’s mouth filled with Mark’s cum, the sound wet and disgusting, _just_ like him eating uni.

The moaned, “I fucking love this,” after Johnny finishes his serving of the mustard yellow dish certainly doesn’t help things.

What surprises Mark the most is how much he laughs with Johnny, who throws jokes and barbed words out like they’ve known each other for years. He teases Mark, but not so much as to let the blows sting, and Mark’s belly aches and his eye fill with tears when Johnny tells him the story of how he and their mutual friend Ten had gotten into trouble once because they’d gotten so drunk, Ten had tried to climb someone’s gate.

“I was like, ‘you idiot, you’re gonna get arrested!’” Johnny says through his giggling. “And Ten was like, ‘only God can judge me, you bastard!’ But then Rona’s father who was a _literal_ judge came out cos of the noise and then Ten got a really stern talking-to.”

“No, no way,” Mark barks, nearly choking on his noodles.

Mark and Ten were tight before but he hasn’t spoken to him recently, and he’d never heard this story before since Ten had transferred out of Mark’s university and into Johnny’s halfway through college.

Johnny snaps a photo of Mark laughing, so Mark does the same.

When they part ways outside Nihonbashitei, and Mark gets into his rideshare to get home, he sees that Johnny’s uploaded the photo of him on his Instagram.

Mark smiles the entire ride home, the Saturday morning traffic cruising along nicely.

🌌🌌🌌

Mark feels like he’s going to crawl out of his skin.

The night air is too warm. The humidity that comes with the end of summer and the start of the rains makes Mark feel even more uncomfortable than he presently is, knowing that he’ll most likely be seeing more of Johnny tonight than he has in the last couple of months.

When Ten answers the front door, he sweeps Mark into this massive hug and ruffles his hair, making Mark laugh and push him off.

“God, I really thought you’d bail on me,” Ten says, pinching Mark in the side. “Don’t fucking scare me like that again.”

“Ouch!” Mark yelps, rubbing at his left nipple where Ten had miraculously aimed at. “I wouldn’t bail on you for anything.”

“Mhmm,” Ten says over the music, raising his eyebrow. “He’s in the backyard, so I’m taking you to the kitchen first to get you like, three beers.”

“Ten, I’m not planning on getting smashed,” Mark sputters while Ten drags him into the kitchen as promised.

The house is filled with people, but nothing so rowdy that he can’t hear Ten over the milling crowd. There are small groups gathered together, bottles of beer or glasses of punch in their hands while they talk. The kitchen’s huge, always has been the biggest part of Ten’s parent’s place, and there are cases and cases of San Miguel Pale Pilsen pushed up against the wall.

“Perks of dad’s friends in high places,” Ten says when he sees Mark eyeing them.

“Figures,” Mark replies, taking the practically frozen beer in hand, using the hem of his shirt to wipe around the mouth of the bottle.

The cold beer offsets his nerves a bit, but only just. Renjun’s arriving late with the others, and Mark high-key wishes he’d decided to wait for them, but he’s here now so it is too late for regrets.

He and Ten make their way back into the living room to catch up, and Mark sincerely hopes that Ten doesn’t ask him questions about Johnny, because Mark himself isn’t too sure.

They’re about half an hour deep in conversation before Mark’s luck begins to run out, because Ten gets this look in his eye and Mark knows he’s going to have to talk about it.

“I know you were probably hoping to avoid this, but I gotta know, cos Johnny’s isn’t telling me shit,” Ten says quietly, leaning in. “Look, I’m not trying to pry or force you guys to talk, but clearly something big went down if you can’t even be in the same room together, Markie. I just wanna know what happened so I know how to be a better friend to you.”

Mark clenches his jaw. Johnny probably doesn’t say anything because he’s erased Mark from memory. There’s no trace of whatever they were, save for some texts that Mark stubbornly refuses to delete, and some shitty poems he’d written for himself to make sense of whatever the fuck it was that he was feeling for Johnny when Johnny was icing him out.

“It was supposed to be a one-off, Ten,” Mark says quietly. “And then it kept happening, and while I was falling and falling, he was just. There. Apparently.”

“Like you guys kept fucking and then…?”

“It was just sex and company for him,” Mark replies. “It was something more for me. My fault, Ten.”

“Don’t act like he didn’t have a hand in this,” Ten frowns.

“Look, I--” Mark sighs. “I should have known better. He’d never said he wanted a relationship. I just assumed.”

“He must have said or done something to make you think that it was on the table?”

Mark looks away. He’d just read it wrong. That’s all.

🌌🌌🌌

There is a hand in his.

The alarm goes off, the first of 8 alarms that Johnny sets in order to wake up for his job at Axon Terminal, where he works as a coder. He hates the job, complains about it to Mark all the time, but it pays the bills.

Mark’s head is pillowed on Johnny’s arm, and his hand is in Johnny’s, their fingers having intertwined in their sleep. He stares at them while Johnny’s alarm goes on and on, phone too far for Mark to reach and shut off. Just as he’s about to nudge Johnny awake, Johnny groans, turns the alarm off, and in the next second, Johnny’s burying his face in Mark’s neck, throwing his thigh over Mark’s hips.

His fingers are still clasping Mark’s

“I don’t wanna get up,” Johnny says, voice raspy. Mark can feel Johnny’s morning wood digging into his hip.

“I think you’re already up,” Mark retorts, earning him a snort from Johnny, who shoves his hips in closer, rutting against Mark’s hip in earnest.

“Mmm,” Johnny moans, his breath starting to hitch. “How about I call in sick and fuck you all morning instead?”

It’s so, so tempting, but Johnny can’t afford to call in sick, not after he’d already done exactly that two weeks ago, fucking Mark all morning and all.

“I’ll blow you and we can shower together but you’re going to work,” Mark replies.

“You drive a hard bargain, Mister Lee,” Johnny says. “But I accept.”

Mark makes Johnny come in nearly 15 minutes flat, holding Johnny’s hips down and going to town on Johnny’s dick even when Johnny tells him to slow down because he knows that Johnny’s going to try to weasel his way into another long, languid fuck, and Mark refuses to be the reason why Johnny gets fired from his job, even if Johnny hates it.

He swallows every drop as Johnny fuck into his mouth, and drags Johnny off the bed so they can squeeze into the shower together, and he lathers up Johnny’s hair with shampoo while Johnny whines through it, and by Mark’s sheer force of will, they’re out of Johnny’s apartment with ten minutes to spare before Johnny has to clock in.

When he tries to take Johnny’s hand while they walk, Johnny pulls away.

Mark pretends that it doesn’t sting.

🌌🌌🌌

Seeing Johnny again makes Mark’s insides shrivel up. It was inevitable since the party has about fifty people, but it is still only _just_ fifty people and everyone is milling about.

Mark doesn’t say hi, just nods when Johnny catches his eye. He downs his second beer of the night, and makes his way to one of the coolers next to the pool table to pull out another one.

He could run, really. He could just leg it and leave now that he’s put in the time with Ten to catch up. Their conversation still has him feeling wrung out, but Xiaojun’s chattering away to someone who’d introduced himself as Jungwoo, and Mark’s sort of drifting off to the side with a new beer in hand, nervously peeling off the paper from the bottle.

Johnny hasn’t made to approach Mark yet and Mark’s honestly not sure what he wants Johnny to do anyway. They’re people who used to fuck and now they don’t and it doesn’t matter that Mark had thought that they could be something more. That’s a Mark problem, not a Johnny one. He supposes.

Mark sighs, and moves out towards the bigger patch of grass, opposite the pool that some people are splashing and playing in, bogged down jeans and tops turning translucent from the water. He doesn’t smoke often anymore, has tried to cut back since he and Johnny--since him and Johnny. He doesn’t carry his own pack but he approaches the two girls sitting near the tall wall of trimmed hedges and asks if he can bum one off them. The girl with short, green hair pulls her Marlboro’s out of a see-through fanny pack at her waist, and hands him a couple.

“Looks like you could do with more than just one, baby,” she laughs, offering him three. “I’m Mina, this is my girlfriend Yeri.”

“Hey,” Mark nods at them both. “Uh, thank you. For this. Mind if I get a light?”

The girl named Yeri has glitter on her eyelids and gloss on her lips, and she pulls out a Zippo lighter to hold it to his lips, and Mark leans in for the first puff he’s had in a long time, the smoke going down smooth, menthol making its way into his lungs and then out in one breath.

“Thanks,” Mark says, voice rough, cigarette hanging loosely in his fingers.

“No problem,” Mina says, and waves him off as he moves off to the side to give them space.

He doesn’t expect to watch Johnny approach him, but Johnny does, making his way across the grass. Mark’s trapped, and if he left right now it would look too obvious that he’s running away, so he wriggles his toes in his Chuck Taylors and stays the fuck in place as his ex-whatever reaches him, and says, “Hey.”

Mark grunts a, “Hey,” and takes another drag.

Mark crosses his left arm over his chest, his right arm still holding his stick. He looks off at the pool, at Mina and Yeri, anywhere but at Johnny.

“How are you?” Johnny asks, lighting his own awful Marlboro Reds. Mark hates that he can practically taste what Johnny’s kisses taste like just from the smell.

“I’m fine,” Mark replies, glancing at Johnny once, and then looking away. “Peachy.”

It’s infuriating how handsome Johnny is to him still, with his stupid fuckboy cap on backward, his stupid fucking earrings, his stupid fucking jean jacket. Even his goddamn eyebrows look like he’s had them waxed or some shit and Mark wants to beat himself up for the spark of want that burns tiny but bright in his stomach.

“Good,” Johnny replies. “Still doing the freelance thing?”

“No, I work with _And A Half Productions_ now,” Mark says. He’d started with the company a few weeks ago, and it’s been nice. Been good for him. Good team. He’d wanted to tell Johnny about it when he’d signed with them. It had taken all of his self-control to delete his message and text Renjun instead, like a fucking sponsor.

Mark hates this, hates that he’s still here.

“Nice, man!” Johnny says, nudging Mark with his elbow. “I’m glad.”

“You still with Axon?” Mark asks. He knows the answer, he knows Johnny hasn’t quit because he doesn’t have the balls to quit, but he needs to fill the space with enough conversation to make it plausible that he didn’t tuck his tail between his legs and balk upon seeing Johnny.

“Yeah,” Johnny sighs, before taking another drag from his cigarette. “They upped my pay, at least, so there’s that.” Smoke escapes Johnny’s nostrils while he speaks. Mark remembers having been endeared by that, months ago.

“Good,” Mark says. “You deserve it.”

A lull forms and continues to grow as they both finish off their cigarettes. Mark clenches his fist under his arm. He wants so badly to lash out at Johnny, to be angry about leading him on or whatever, but every single time he tries to form an argument in his head, it dies on Mark’s lips.

“Mark--”

“I’m gonna go find Renjun,” Mark says at the same time. “Wait--what?”

Johnny chews on his lip. “Can we talk?”

Mark takes one more drag from his cigarette before putting it out on the sole of his shoe.

“Fine.”

🌌🌌🌌

It lasts two months before it starts to fall apart, and drags on for three more, filled with Johnny taking ages to reply to him, and Mark pointedly ignoring his phone so he's not waiting all the fucking time before they call it quits, but in those two months, Mark spends his days happy, his body satiated by how deeply Johnny fucks him, how ravenous they are whenever Johnny has him over.

They go out for Korean fried chicken at 1 in the morning, and drink a lot of soju, and come back home buzzed and fall into bed. Johnny goes to work and Mark does his work from his laptop, editing as he goes. Work goes with him everywhere, and it gets done in the spaces when Johnny’s stuck at Axon Terminal until he clocks out at 5 pm.

Mark introduces Johnny to his Renjun and Xiaojun and Hendery; Mark gets brought to little watering holes where Johnny introduces him to his friends, most of whom have full sleeves tattooed into their arms, or at least one facial piercing. Mark listens to so much Kings of Convenience and Alt-j, and Johnny listens to him hum under his breath while Mark insists on doing the dishes since Johnny had cooked for them.

They watch movies in the cinema, and Mark resists the urge to try to hold his hand again, but sometimes Johnny will sling his arm around his shoulders, and Mark takes every crumb to hide away in his heart so he can look at them when he’s alone, and tell himself, “Here, have this feast.”

The end begins when Mark has to fly back to Vancouver for his brother’s graduation.

They’ve met each other’s friends; Mark’s met Johnny’s family; they’ve spent every other day together.

They still don’t hold hands--not in public anyway. But whenever Mark wakes up in Johnny’s arms, there it is, his fingers warm, ensconced in Johnny’s hands.

They never really talk about it. Dating is a loose term, Mark supposes.

Except he never knows when he’s allowed to ask for a kiss. He still finds his heart racing, wondering if he’ll be rebuffed for it when they’re not about to fuck again.

One time, when Mark’s come over from a full two days apart because he’d been on set for a project, Johnny’s got a new Bluetooth mouse for him since Mark’s old one had conked out on him and he’d been messaging Johnny about it.

When Mark thanks him for it profusely, Johnny waves it off, and says, “It’s all good, man. I got it on discount.”

Like it didn’t mean anything.

Of course, it hadn’t meant anything.

But Mark allows himself to read into it, another morsel he squirrels away, and when he gets home the next day, when he fires his laptop up and gets back to working on the last of the edits for Kun’s project, the Bluetooth mouse works seamlessly, and he pretends that it’s an indication that their relationship is taking a turn for the better.

So when his trip to Vancouver approaches, he decides to bring it up after they watch a local band together. The concert finishes up and they’re smoking outside the venue when Mark says, “So, I was just wondering like, what are we doing?”

Johnny exhales a plume of smoke, taps his cigarette, and quirks his head.

“What do you mean? I thought you were coming back to mine tonight?”

Mark clenches his jaw.

“No, I mean, when I get to Vancouver like. I’d like to be able to tell my parents what’s going on in my life,” Mark says, taking a drag. “Like do I tell them I have a boyfriend?”

Johnny raises his eyebrow.

“I’m not your boyfriend though?” Johnny says, and he looks genuinely confused.

It kicks Mark in the gut harder than it should.

“Dude, I know,” Mark says, trying to play it off like he’s being casual about this. “I just wanted to know like--”

“I mean like, we’re free to sleep with other people, you know?” Johnny says.

“Right,” Mark says. The sucker punch shifts to jealousy, rising until it’s acrid and bitter in his mouth. “Have you been sleeping with other people?”

Mark hates the uncertainty in his voice. He hates that he isn’t sure, and that he feels like if Johnny said yes, it would break him. The hand that holds his cigarette shakes when he brings it to his lips again. The evening is chilly, and he wraps his arms around himself tighter.

“No,” Johnny says lightly. “Not since we started this. But like the option’s always been open, so it’s all cool, man. Live it up in Vancouver! Get Tinder and have fun.”

Live it up. Get Tinder. Have fun.

Mark swallows.

“Okay,” Mark says, and puts his cigarette out. He drops the subject.

🌌🌌🌌

They sit on the grass, the small pointed leaves cutting through Mark’s jeans. Johnny’s picking at the grass in front of him, and Mark’s just waiting for him to speak up.

“I’m sorry I hurt you,” Johnny says, so quietly that Mark has to lean in to hear it better.

The apology is heavy, and Mark has no idea how he’s going to do this without crying. He’d done such a good fucking job of it, too, all these months. Of course, it’s in front of Johnny that he breaks.

“I don’t know how badly, but I know that I treated you like shit and I just--I’m sorry.”

Mark is silent for a long stretch. He still has two more cigarettes in his front pocket, and he sure as hell won’t make it through this without them, but before he asks for a light, he says, “You don’t even know what you’re apologizing for, Johnny.”

That’s when Johnny turns to him, eyes hooded.

“So tell me,” Johnny says. “Tell me everything.”

Mark runs his fingers through his hair. It’s infuriating how fucking dense Johnny is being. He half-wishes he wasn’t gay so he didn’t have to keep dealing with men being idiots about everything.

“Lighter,” Mark says. It's a far cry from how he used to talk to Johnny, like Mark was always filled with wonder, or at least fond exasperation. Mark’s just filled with this sort of hollow thing. It doesn’t even make sense.

Johnny hands it to him without question, and lights his second cigarette in a span of ten minutes. He’s going to get a headache from this, but he’ll take it over having to do this without nicotine.

“Sometimes, the thought of me I wishing that I’d never come over that first night crosses my mind,” Mark says. “Which is mean, but when I was alone and licking my wounds, it’s all I could think of.”

Johnny says nothing. Just pulls at the grass. Mark can see Johnny’s jaw working itself, the tense line of Johnny’s back.

“I don’t mean it though but sometimes I just think it would be easier,” Mark says. He inhales a lungful of smoke again, and then taps the end, the ash falling on the grass gently. “You really hurt me, but then again, it was my fault for making assumptions.”

“I--I didn’t exactly make it easy on you,” Johnny says. “I think I knew. I guess I always knew how you felt about me, and I just never brought it up because I didn’t know what I wanted. I… I still don’t. I wish I had better answers.”

Mark looks away. His eyes are starting to fill with tears. He bites the inside of his cheek.

“Let’s just--you led me on, I let myself be led on,” Mark says. “That’s what happened, isn’t it?”

Johnny pulls his own pack of cigarettes out again.

“I guess,” Johnny replies, before taking the lighter Mark’s left on the grass between them.

“When I told you I fucked around in Vancouver, did you feel anything?” Mark asks, remembering the faces of the men he’d slept with in an attempt to rid himself of feeling anything for Johnny while he was gone. “It’s okay if you didn’t. I just wanted to know. Since we’re finally telling each other the truth and everything.”

Johnny hunches over like a fucking shrimp, and then straightens his back, like he’s remembering all the times Mark had poked him to sit up straight.

“A little,” Johnny replies. “I’m not heartless, Mark.”

Mark has to bite his tongue to prevent the scoff that threatens to escape him.

“But as I said, I wasn’t your boyfriend,” Johnny continues. “So I’d get over it. Did you tell me to brag?”

“Yes,” Mark says without hesitation. The wind picks up and his cigarette burns faster. “I think I wanted to hurt you. Guess it only did half the job.”

Johnny nods. What does anyone say to that, anyway? They smoke in silence before Johnny lifts himself up on his hands, readjusts how he’s seated and faces Mark properly.

“Mark,” Johnny says, making Mark look up. There’s an emotion in Johnny’s eyes that Mark can’t place because he’s never seen it before. “I’m sorry for having been a coward. I’m--I didn’t grow up with affection. I watched my dad split when I was a kid, and mom was just this young single mother who did her best with me. I’ve got abandonment issues a mile wide and I know that sounds like a cop-out but I swear, I wish I had treated you better. You didn’t deserve to be on the receiving end of my cowardice.”

Mark blinks furiously. He wills himself to take deeper breaths, wills his hands to stop shaking. He can’t look Johnny in the eye right now, so he keeps his eyes trained on the pool, and that’s when he sees Xiaojun motioning to him frantically, like he’s asking if Mark needs saving.

Mark just shakes his head.

Johnny isn’t done, it seems, because he takes another deep breath, and plows on.

“I’m sorry that I wasn’t more forthcoming,” Johnny continues. “I think--it was just difficult for me, having to blur lines with sex, friendship, and a relationship. I don't regret anything with you, except for how I acted, and how we started out. I’m sorry that you regret us now.”

Mark looks up at this, his head whipping up and his eyes locking on Johnny’s.

“I don’t--” Mark’s voice is wrecked. An errant tear falls, and he brushes it off quickly. “I don’t regret us, Johnny. I just. It really hurts, losing you. It hurts realizing that there’s nothing to show for whatever you and I were. You made sure of that.”

Johnny looks down.

“My Instagram,” Johnny says.

“Yeah.”

“I didn’t think you’d notice.”

Mark’s tears are flowing a little more freely than comfortable, but there’s no point in hiding it anymore. It’s obvious he’s crying.

“Yeah well, turns out I’m the pathetic loser who goes through people’s Instagram profiles to see if I didn’t imagine the entire thing in my head,” Mark says, his voice wet and nasal. “I mean, I’m pretty sure it happened. I’ve got photos and videos on my phone but who knows? Maybe I hallucinated those too.”

That was mean. He’s being mean.

“You didn’t,” Johnny says. His voice is small, and he’s drawn his legs up to his chest, his chin resting on his knees. “I don't think I ever mentioned it to you but I told some of my friends that I have never enjoyed anyone else's company as much as I did with you. I like how we were on the same wavelength, and how you'd catch the subtlest of jokes I made under my breath.”

Mark swallows. He doesn’t know how much more of this he can take.

“I’m sorry I was such a coward. You made me really happy. I’m sorry I put you through this.”

Mark frowns, turns to face the bushes, and then covers his face with his hands, unable to hold back the sob that rips itself from his throat, from his chest. He keels over, and he feels the tears slip and fall between his fingers, and he _cannot_ believe that he’s openly crying his fucking eyes out in public, in front of Johnny.

There’s a hand on Mark’s back, rubbing along his spine, and he hurriedly unrolls one of the sleeves he’d folded at his elbow to mop up his tears. The rustling of grass behind him, and the warmth next to him tells Mark that Johnny’s moved closer.

“Can I--” Johnny starts, and Mark’s nodding frantically, unable to hold it back when he feels Johnny’s arms around him, and he’s burying his face in Johnny’s shoulder, the grey sweater no doubt staining dark with his snot.

Mark doesn’t think he’s ever been this sad because it feels so wildly unfair that he and Johnny had been so compatible but not in the way that lasted. Whatever they were feels like fireworks that went off too soon. There’s no saving it, no going back once it’s fizzled out.

Johnny sniffles, and continues to rub circles on Mark’s back before that begins to feel stifling, too. Mark’s glad he wore contacts tonight, otherwise, he’d have fucked his glasses up.

Mark calms down, no longer at bawling point, and he hiccups, getting himself in order.

“For what it’s worth, I miss your early morning company,” Johnny says softly.

“I need you to stop saying this shit,” Mark says, but it’s without bite. He means it, but he doesn’t mean to be mean about it anymore.

Johnny gets it. Even here, at the end, Johnny gets it, gets him.

They’re quiet again for a while, before Mark decides that it’s time to go.

“I’m--I’m gonna go now, Johnny,” Mark says, rising and brushing the grass out of his ass and the backs of his thighs. He holds his hand out for Johnny to take, which he does, holding on as he rises from the ground as well.

“Okay, I--I’ll see you around, Mark,” Johnny says.

Their hands are still joined.

Mark takes a step closer, and then another.

Johnny’s arms come around him once more. Mark closes his eyes, tries to remember what this feels like, embed it into his skin and his nerves so he doesn’t forget. Mark’s arms circle Johnny’s waist, and his temple presses against Johnny’s cheek. There isn’t a single emotion that can encompass the wave that washes over Mark: anger, hurt, forgiveness.

It’s everything at once, and he thinks that he’ll be okay. Some time. Some distance. At least they’ve both said what they needed to say, and the word ‘closure’ seems foreign to Mark at the moment, but it’ll seem much more familiar as the days go.

Mark steps away, and takes one last good look at Johnny, at his handsome face, the lips downturned at their corners, the sad eyes. For once, Mark can read him, and Mark registers remorse.

He’ll take it.

“Take care. Bye, Johnny,” Mark says, taking another step back before turning on his heel.

Behind him, Johnny says, “Don’t be a stranger, Mark.”

Mark doesn’t look back.

**Author's Note:**

> _ :(´ཀ`」 ∠):_
> 
> im sorry


End file.
